Yesterday in our local library I looked through Jerry Coyne's new book Why Evolution is True. [Check out the blurbs for this book on Amazon!] Believe me when I tell you that this is a masterpiece written to explain to the non-technical reader why scientists accept evolution. It presents many charts that explain the text too. If you as a Christian think the book of Genesis tells us about creation then you cannot be ignorant any longer, and ignorance is what it is. Get this book and come up to the educated world. After reading it you will then need to reconcile the fact of evolution with what you find in Genesis, and that prospect is not promising at all.

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I heard Coyne interviewed on NPR a couple weeks ago, don't know if it is available in their archives. I was impressed by his clarity in describing not just evolution but also in where he sees faith and reason as incompatable.

Somewhat off topic: I wonder what creationists make of all those exoplanets astronomers keep finding? If mindless natural processes can roll interstellar matter into planets around other stars, then why do we need to postulate a god to account for the matter rolled into our planet?

I agree! I found this book in Chapters not too long ago, and put it up on my Amazon wishlist for later...another book that seems like a good one (though don't quote me on it) is "Scientists Confront Creationism", edited by Andrew Petto and Laurie Godfrey. It might be seen as a little more confrontational, but it also has the advantage of giving the views of more than one scientist on the matter.

Both titles are master works of explaining evolution, and both demonstrate the amazing power of evolution as a predictive tool.

I don't know if you've blogged about it, but Coyne has a discussion on edge.org(discussing his February 04, 2009 article, "Seeing and Believing" in "The New Republic") concerning the compatibility of science and religion and the never-ending attempt to reconcile them. It's a fine article and it has several responses by notable academics. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/coyne09/coyne09_index.html

Also, thank you for pointing me to Lobdell's "Losing My Religion." It was heartwrenching to read and I can scarcely imagine how painful it was to write. Perhaps your strategy for de-Christianizing the world should include getting more people to cover the religion beat as investigative reporters.